The invention relates to a method for ascertaining phyto-specific characteristics for differently grown crops to differentiate between crop plants that have been subjected to different methods of growing, such as conventional methods of growing with standard nitrogen mineral fertilizer, biological methods with natural dung and biologically dynamic methods.
In conventionally conducted agriculture and horticulture crops are provided with nitrogen on a large scale by the application of the inorganic precursors NO.sub.3.sup.-, NH.sub.4.sup.+ of mineral nitrogen fertilizers before or during germination or the early phases of vegetation of the crop plants. In comparison with ecological cultivation, manuring with mineral fertilizers as a source of nitrogen causes changes in the vegetative body of the plant. Such variations include for example an enhanced production of biomass, reduction in the dry weight in comparison with the dry weight, premature signs of decomposition after harvesting, less resistance to fungal and insect attack etc.
Ecological (or biological) cultivation dispenses with such use of mineral nitrogen fertilizers so that there is no spasmodic swamping of the metabolic process by mineral nitrogeneous precursors. Therefore the consequences, of which some examples have been noted, of the application of nitrogeneous manure do not occur.